Carpentarian dunnart

Sminthopsis butleri

Blamed on cats

IUCN Status: Near Threatened

EPBC Threat Rating: Moderate

IUCN Claim: “Exotic predators (cats and possibly dogs)’”

Studies in support

Carpentarian dunnarts were among small mammals negatively correlated with cat occupancy (Stobo-Wilson et al. 2020a)

Studies not in support

No studies

Is the threat claim evidence-based?

Cats have been documented among a range of ecological variables negatively correlated with Carpentarian dunnarts. Causality cannot be inferred due to confounding variables.

Evidence linking Sminthopsis butleri to cats. Systematic review of evidence for an association between Sminthopsis butleri and cats. Positive studies are in support of the hypothesis that cats contribute to the decline of Sminthopsis butleri, negative studies are not in support. Predation studies include studies documenting hunting or scavenging; baiting studies are associations between poison baiting and threatened mammal abundance where information on predator abundance is not provided; population studies are associations between threatened mammal and predator abundance.
Evidence linking Sminthopsis butleri to cats. Systematic review of evidence for an association between Sminthopsis butleri and cats. Positive studies are in support of the hypothesis that cats contribute to the decline of Sminthopsis butleri, negative studies are not in support. Predation studies include studies documenting hunting or scavenging; baiting studies are associations between poison baiting and threatened mammal abundance where information on predator abundance is not provided; population studies are associations between threatened mammal and predator abundance.

References

Stobo-Wilson, A. M., et al. “Bottom-up and top-down processes influence contemporary patterns of mammal species richness in Australia’s monsoonal tropics.” Biological Conservation 247 (2020): 108638.

Wallach et al. 2023 In Submission